Which is more ethical?

[Falvlun]

Morality is concerned with the normative behaviours which all people, regardless of race of nationality consider improper because they are harmful to other sentient beings (beings that have some sort of sense of personal value, the capacity to suffer, the ability to have long term self interest...)

I agree with you that there are three (maybe four) actions that are considered wrong across all cultures: stealing, lying, murder, and maybe rape. However, this is extremely general, as each culture (and person!) can have different definitions of what murder, for example, entails. Is killing someone in self-defense murder? There are also instances when it would seem permissible (itwillend's proclamation notwithstanding) to lie or steal, but perhaps these are simply wrapped up in a more complex or detailed definition of those things.

There are also instances of large blocks of people believing a certain action is immoral, such as homosexual acts or depicting Muhammed, and other blocks don't.

So, while I do believe that we have similar underlying tendencies in morality, I don't believe that it is as uniform as your statement suggests.

The fact that these tend to be the same across all cultures suggests very strongly that they are not matters of opinion but of principle.

...or that evolution has ingrained them into us, and that societal culture (and pressure) reinforces them.

Humans (and other sentient beings) don't like to be punched in the face, because it hurts. If it happened every day, it could really interfere with your ability to live a decent life. That's not my opinion, that's fact, which is, among other facts, the foundation for moral principles.

Ah, but there is an underlying assumption there. Is it a fact, in the same way that being punched in the face is unpleasant is a fact, that human beings are required to make sure that other human beings can live a decent life?

But it's not arbitrary. I agree that there's no celestial 3rd party to make an perfectly unbiased judgement, but the principles remain objective nonetheless. Even if we did have a third party to act as lawgiver, those laws would not be objective either. You're calling for a standard of objectivity that is unachievable. The standard I propose eliminates cultural or personal preference

Perhaps the answer isn't to lower the standards of objectivity, but to realize that objectivity cannot be fully met?

 

[MSizer]

I know I'm probably getting annoying with the semantics here but then can we agree that you've still chosen a human constructed morality albeit one that has the "best" and "objective" parts to it (using the best of aspects of human reason and logic) and that there is no universal morality?

Yes I agree it's a human construct, but it's contingent on principles, so I'm not comfortable saying that it's not universal (at least within the circle to which it applies, which I think is human beings (and some of the more intelligent animals, although not to the same degree as humans).

Or do you think animals will eventually evolve--or any other living species would evolve--to the point of using this universal morality if they had the intellect?

I think this is possible. I think there's no way of knowing whether it will happen, but I think the same principles would apply to any other species, present or future, which becomes able to recognize and comprehend the principles I've referred to in my arguments.

 

[MSizer]

I agree with you that there are three (maybe four) actions that are considered wrong across all cultures: stealing, lying, murder, and maybe rape. However, this is extremely general, as each culture (and person!) can have different definitions of what murder, for example, entails. Is killing someone in self-defense murder? There are also instances when it would seem permissible (itwillend's proclamation notwithstanding) to lie or steal, but perhaps these are simply wrapped up in a more complex or detailed definition of those things.
There are also instances of large blocks of people believing a certain action is immoral, such as homosexual acts or depicting Muhammed, and other blocks don't.

So, while I do believe that we have similar underlying tendencies in morality, I don't believe that it is as uniform as your statement suggests.

Exactly, and that's why morality must be based on principles rather than details. The problem you're referring to is a question of values. Moral disagreements are usually of two types: correct info and value differences. The first type, correct info, might be where two individuals disagree on whether species X deserves moral consideration. If you dig deeply, you may find that both believe that sentience is the criterion for a species deserving moral consideration, but that one person thinks they are sentient while the other does not. In that case, it's simply a matter of deferring to the experts to resolve the matter.

The moral disagreements which are much more difficult are those of differing values. So for example, an animal rights activist might say that killing cattle for food is morally impermissible, while a muslim (just as an example) may say "while it is not permissible to kill them for no reason, it is morally permissible to kill them for food because it's halal according to god". In such a case, Belief interferes in the muslim's ability to make unbiased moral deliberations IMO. Those types of value differences are the ones that create moral disagreements that are hard to resolve.

Ah, but there is an underlying assumption there. Is it a fact, in the same way that being punched in the face is unpleasant is a fact, that human beings are required to make sure that other human beings can live a decent life?

No, although this is where it becomes a matter of degree, which makes it hard to be specific. It's like the old questions "exactly how many grains of rice comprise a heap of rice?". The problem is that psychological ingroup/outgroup and social pressures are involved in this. So for example, i wouldn't drive by a young girl apparently injured on the side of the road without stopping to help, but I might toss out a mail request to send enough money to save 25 hungry children without guilt. Our evolutionary tendencies for empathy favour those individuals who are in close proximity to us.

Perhaps the answer isn't to lower the standards of objectivity, but to realize that objectivity cannot be fully met?

I don't think I agree with that. I agree it's not easy to either determine nor follow through, but I'm not so sure I agree it can't be done.

 

[Reverend Rick]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCyFkjBRrbo

 

[MSizer]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCyFkjBRrbo

Dangit, it's such a tease when people post youtube videos. I can't get them from behind my corporate firewall.

 

[Father Heathen]

When it comes to survival, ethics fly out the window.

Of course. If Christians can bend their beliefs and morals for the sake of profit and greed then they would definitely have no problem doing so for survival.

 

[Riverwolf]

I disagree. Context exits, yes, but I don't believe they're relative. For example, it could be argued that a person in 1750 who didn't speak out against slavery could be excused on the ground that it was the social norm in those days, but that doesn't make it morally acceptable IMO. It's the same with meat eating today. Someday they'll look back and say "well, they all did it, so you can't really blame them, even though they were killing sentient beings when it was not necessary".

In other words, nobody is qualified to call others on their morality, because their own moralities are screwed up. :yes:

 

[MSizer]

In other words, nobody is qualified to call others on their morality, because their own moralities are screwed up. :yes:

No. We all do our best, and if we're reasonable, we're open to the opinions of others, because chances are none of us have it all correct and complete.

 

[Riverwolf]

No. We all do our best, and if we're reasonable, we're open to the opinions of others, because chances are none of us have it all correct and complete.

I didn't say we don't do our best.

I said that because we don't have it perfectly, we shouldn't condemn someone who may do something we ourselves consider immoral, ESPECIALLY if that someone has been dead for hundreds of years, and that something was par for the course at the time.

Since morality is an abstract, and only exists in the human mind, it cannot be objective.

 

[MSizer]

I didn't say we don't do our best.

I said that because we don't have it perfectly, we shouldn't condemn someone who may do something we ourselves consider immoral, ESPECIALLY if that someone has been dead for hundreds of years, and that something was par for the course at the time..

I don't think that we should. I simply implied that slavery is immoral, and that those who practiced it were acting immorally, even though they did not all realize it. End of story. I agree it's pointless to harp on them now. But to say that it's wrong to condemn slavery is immoral IMO. That's one part of history I don't want to see relived. There are many others.

Since morality is an abstract, and only exists in the human mind, it cannot be objective.

It is not abstract at all. It is based, as I have described in great detail throughout earlier posts in this thread, on verfiable principles.

If you think it cannot be objective, then how can you claim it's not ok to keep slaves sometimes? Does it depend on their age? Gender? Skin colour? No it depends on the universally human existential harm that occurs to anyone who is enslaved. That is not my opinion. Nobody wants to be enslaved (there may be very few rare exceptions, but certainly their mental health would be in question). That's an objective statement.

 

[Kathryn]

I think Sen & Nussbaum have it spot on in her capabilities approach to ethics (although I think it needs to be slightly revised to include some other animals too).

In a nutshell, they outline 10 categories of conditions necessary to allow a human being to flourish (essentially to grant a human being the opportunity to forge a satisfying life).

So for example some of the principles are bodily integrity, freedom from emotional abuse, permission to own modest property, permission to participate in social institutions, permission to engage in meaningful relationships with other humans, animals and plants, permission to recreate (and it goes on - I can't quite remember them all - you can wiki it if interested).

So they've listed a number of things they feel necessary for a person to have the opportunity to live a happy life, regardless of race, culture, era or location.

Moral deliberations then simply become a matter of deciding whether an action facilitates or inhibits any of these conditions. If you inhibit these conditions, you act immorally. If you facilitate them, you act morally.

I don't think it's a perfect model, but I do believe it's the best one I've ever learned about, because it is objective and very practical (unlike other moral theories which are always ambiguous in some ways).

Who grants this "permission?" Are these "inalienable rights" like life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness? Who defines "modest property?" Who defines "abuse?" Who defines "meaningful relationships?"

 

[MSizer]

Who grants this "permission?"

Nobody grants permission. The concept of permission in itself is immoral. It's simply immoral if you stand in the way of my opportunities. It works itself out that way.

Are these "inalienable rights" like life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?

No, those are quotes from other philosophers (and politicians I think). It's all laid out in the theory, most of which I stated in earlier posts. Further detail is all available if you look up Martha Nussbaum's work.

Who defines "modest property?"

Modest property is a quantity of property that is comparable to others in the society.

Who defines "abuse?"

Abuse is pretty simple. If you punch me, it's abuse. If you make statements that hurt me, it's abuse. There doesn't need to be anybody to define it, the theory does that for us. There only needs to be people to define laws, not moral principles.

Who defines "meaningful relationships?"

Those parties involved in the relationship.

 

[Kathryn]

We each have responsibilities, and as a Christian I believe my responsibilities are to God, family, and then community. If MY daughter's organs could save five people but she's alive and well, hey you'll have to come through me to get to her, and it won't be pretty.

There is no "what might have been." There is only "what is." "What is" is that I have a life and a family that is my responsibility to protect from harm - great gifts of life and promise. Hypothetically, we could each go down to the hospital tomorrow and say, "We want to donate our organs, our healthy organs, to better the lives of others." But why would that be wrong? It would be wrong in my opinion because we have been given the gift of life, and each life has a purpose to FULFILL. We don't generally choose our death (except in dire circumstances). We have been given life in order to fulfill a purpose on this earth. This is why I don't believe in the death penalty (except in extreme situations where we can absolutely not protect society from that person in any other way) or abortion (except to save the life of the mother).

Love God and love your neighbor as yourself. When you love your neighbor as you love yourself, you treat that person right - as you would treat yourself right. You do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Then things fall into place. You wouldn't want to be forced to give YOUR life or your child's life up - don't ask that of others. You don't want someone else's sewage in your drinking water, so don't put any sewage in theirs. See, it's really not all that difficult to figure out.

As for hypothetical situations where other groups of people sacrifice someone ELSE for the "greater good" - why doesn't anyone ever talk about SELF sacrifice in those cases? It's always sacrificing SOMEONE ELSE. Bad example, in my opinion.

Do you agree with the legal concept of eminent domain - where someone can come along, steal your family's farm, and build a parking lot for a strip mall so that tax dollars can be generated for the greater good of a community? It's the same thing.

Wrong is wrong. If you wouldn't want something done to you, don't do it to another person.

See, there's this novel idea called "honor." It's really out of vogue at present, but it's got some very good qualities.

Most of the time, we can make sound decisions to do what's right - but it often calls for self sacrifice and pain, which we really don't like. But I would rather die with honorable people in an overloaded lifeboat and know I did the right thing, than kill another human being and have to live with that the rest of my life.

You do what you would want others to do to you, to the best of your abilities, and you take the licks life gives you. That's all any of us can do. But living a life of compromised values leads only to sorrow, disillusionment, and self loathing.

 

[Riverwolf]

I don't think that we should. I simply implied that slavery is immoral, and that those who practiced it were acting immorally, even though they did not all realize it. End of story. I agree it's pointless to harp on them now. But to say that it's wrong to condemn slavery is immoral IMO. That's one part of history I don't want to see relived. There are many others.

There's no argument from me on that: but, guess what, slavery still exists. Disney deals in it.

It is not abstract at all. It is based, as I have described in great detail throughout earlier posts in this thread, on verfiable principles.

If you think it cannot be objective, then how can you claim it's not ok to keep slaves sometimes? Does it depend on their age? Gender? Skin colour? No it depends on the universally human existential harm that occurs to anyone who is enslaved. That is not my opinion. Nobody wants to be enslaved (there may be very few rare exceptions, but certainly their mental health would be in question). That's an objective statement.

Nobody wants to be fired, either. Is firing a slacking employee immoral? Morality cannot be based on simple desire, because things rarely go the way we want them to go. Not to mention the fact that if something is immoral even if we don't realize it, then we're all could very well be no more moral than Hitler.

If morality is based on harm, then all of us are immoral mass-murderers for all the deaths to insects, animals, microbes, etc. that we all cause on a daily basis. Or do their lives somehow contain less worth than ours? We are also no more moral than the slave-owners for tolerating the poor education system in America right now, and placing our children in front of T.V.s just to get them out of our hair for a few minutes. That, in my opinion, is no less than negligence, and may be level with child abuse if it's done for hours. We also tolerate parents who are still children themselves (maybe not physically or age-wise, but still have the mentality of children), and have no idea whatsoever how to raise a child properly.

All life is sacred. ALL life. That is my opinion. I think we can both agree that slavery is immoral. Yet it persists, and is still tolerated. Sure, modern slaves may sometimes get a few pennies worth of a week's pay, but it's still slavery. Have you seen what the manufacturing section of Disney is doing?

Now, if morality is not objective, then it is neither okay nor not okay to keep slaves. It's simply the act of keeping slaves. Should WE, who ought to know better, keep slaves? Absolutely not. But, then again, how do we know it's not okay? You could argue that it is simple logic, but if that were the case, slavery would have never existed, wars would never have been fought, and human rights superior to our own would have been right there from the beginning of civilizations.

It still exists only in the human mind; what use is morality to a fish? What use is it to a tree? Or a rock? Or the Earth? If morality were objective, it would affect them, as well.

Sorry if I seem like I'm rambling; I haven't had the best of evenings.

EDIT: I'd like to point out that existing only within the human mind is still existing, and therefore, unless you're a monastic renouncing the world, it still must be acknowledged.

 

[footprints]

Hypothetically:
The race of humans are dying. All resources are depleted, but we have figured out a way to harvest humans in a way that some can survive and maybe create a new future.

What is the right thing to do, harvest the humans, or die with everyone and be done with it?

Edit: When I say harvest humans, I mean kill them for resources in this hypothetical situation.

Hypothetically or not, the scenario doesn't make sense. If humans are dying out, yet we have found a way to harvest them, then logically speaking, humans wouldn't be dying out.

Could I turn cannibal? On the surface, I would have to say no. This isn't for any ethical reason, but more the thought of eating a human sickens me. In fact I know it is downright bigoted of me, when I wouldn't turn away from a steak, or roasted leg of lamb. Albeit I suppose a person never really knows until they are put in that spot.

If you mean, by cloning humans? I would have to say I personally would look at a cloned human in the same way I would look at any human.

 

[Reverend Rick]

Of course. If Christians can bend their beliefs and morals for the sake of profit and greed then they would definitely have no problem doing so for survival.

You got me there. :sorry1: Do I get frubals for being honest? :help:

 

[Alceste]

We already harvest humans to support our society. I think it's immoral, personally, but it does not seem like the people making the rules have a problem with it.

 

[TheKnight]

I personally would have to say that I would disagree with "harvesting" human beings for the sake of the group. If we've devolved so much that we need to kill one another to survive then perhaps we should accept our fate as one that has come to an end.

 

[Valjean]

Does anyone else see the flaw in the original proposition? If we're our only resource, maintaining ourselves by consuming ourselves isn''t a mathematically sustainable system, you'd have to have zero energy loss; perfect recycling efficiency, just to maintain the status quo. As a species we'd be as good as done for.
Without perfect efficiency our species' total man-hours (years?) of survival time would be less if we harvested than if we all just held hands and waited to die. Thus, if quality-of-life were quantified, we'd get more with a no harvest scenario.

That quibble aside, I tend to agree with MSizer. The end doesn't justify the means. There are absolute principles of morality which weigh against predation on others.

Emotionally, I feel if we've depleted the planet to such an extent that it can't sustain complex life, then we're clearly a virulent infectious life form that should have been nipped in the bud long ago. Snuff me out, baby!

 

[Alceste]

Does anyone else see the flaw in the original proposition? If we're our only resource, maintaining ourselves by consuming ourselves isn''t a mathematically sustainable system, you'd have to have zero energy loss; perfect recycling efficiency, just to maintain the status quo. As a species we'd be as good as done for.
Without perfect efficiency our species' total man-hours (years?) of survival time would be less if we harvested than if we all just held hands and waited to die. Thus, if quality-of-life were quantified, we'd get more with a no harvest scenario.

That quibble aside, I tend to agree with MSizer. The end doesn't justify the means. There are absolute principles of morality which weigh against predation on others.

Emotionally, I feel if we've depleted the planet to such an extent that it can't sustain complex life, then we're clearly a virulent infectious life form that should have been nipped in the bud long ago. Snuff me out, baby!

Wampus tells me we actually are partly virus, as it turns out.

I, virus: Why you're only half human - life - 29 January 2010 - New Scientist